Tottenham could retain David Pleat as their manager for the rest of the season while they wait for Martin O'Neill to join them from Celtic at the end of the campaign.

Tottenham could retain David Pleat as their manager for the rest of the season while they wait for Martin O'Neill to join them from Celtic at the end of the campaign.

The idea is gaining in appeal for Spurs chairman Daniel Levy who looks prepared to bide his time over the next long-term appointment following Glenn Hoddle's dismissal last week.

Spurs have had no fewer than a dozen managers since they last won the league championship under Bill Nicholson 42 years ago and Levy knows he must recruit the right candidate next time.

He clearly sees caretaker Pleat as a safe pair of hands in the meantime. Pleat, who is believed to earn around &#xA3;300,000 a year as Tottenham's director of football, still refuses to discuss his own future at the club.

"I will continue to look after the shop until someone says different - or we have a meeting to discuss who is available or suitable," said Pleat.

"Then it will be a group decision," he added.

"The last thing I have spoken about this week is the profile of the type of person who might run a club like Tottenham."

But there are suggestions that Levy will open talks with Celtic later this week aimed at securing a deal which will see O'Neill return to the Premiership from Glasgow to take charge at White Hart Lane next term.

The former Leicester and Wycombe manager, who still owns a house in Buckinghamshire, is said to be attracted to such a proposition provided personal terms are appealing enough.

But he insisted the only previous dialogue he had with Tottenham was when rejecting their attempts to prise away strikers Henrik Larsson and Craig Beattie from Celtic Park in the summer.

Shortly afterwards, Hoddle embarked on a &#xA3;12m spending spree to improve his squad, having survived a close vote among the Spurs board over his future in the job.

But a string of defeats, which plunged Tottenham into the bottom three finally ended the former England manager's two-year reign at the club where he had been an icon as a player.

And Pleat has since filled in as caretaker with a Carling Cup win at Coventry and a creditable goalless draw away to Premiership rivals Manchester City on Sunday.

He has already made some bold changes, leaving two of Hoddle's new signings - &#xA3;6.25m Helder Postiga and &#xA3;1.5m Bobby Zamora - out of the side.